Post Surgery Hospital Stay

Saturday in the hospital was easy. The staff made me get up and walk. It was easier than I thought.  The epidural line was removed from my abdomen and I was now on Oxycontin and Oxycodone. No more pain killers directly to the incision. I still didn't feel anything, so it was all good. I was supposed to eat but I just wasn't interested.  I also sat in a chair. I still mostly want to sleep which is what I did when I wasn't doing breathing treatments.

Sunday was the same.  Still not interested in food but I had to eat before they would let me go home.  I took walks with the physical therapist and sat up for a while.  My mom came to visit and while she was here the anesthesiologist came and took the epidural line out of my back.  Still no pain, so I was doing OK. Too bad they had to pull that out while mom was here, I'm not sure I could sit through seeing that. The only problem was I started to itch everywhere. The nurse brought some Benadryl, she said it was a side effect from the medication.  That was the worst symptom I had during my entire stay.

Monday I got to go home. But first I had to learn how to get in and out of bed.  So the physical therapist and I worked on that. It was not easy. But I got it. Then after going over discharge instructions and getting medications together, we were ready to go. There is nothing better than home.

Post Surgery - Remembering Friday

I have been home from the hospital for three days now.  I will try and re-cap what I remember from my 5-day stay.  I thought I could write this all in one day but I am exhausted after 20 minutes of typing. So it might take me a while to write it all down.
Friday: I am scheduled for surgery at 9:30 but 9:30 goes by then 10, then 10:30 and I start to get anxious. The physician's assistant finally comes in to apologize because their first case of the day was tougher than they anticipated. He said there was a lot of scar tissue to get through and they wanted to do it right. I asked why he thinks he should apologize for doing a good job. Besides, I'm not going anywhere.

I finally get rolled into surgery a little after noon.  I remember seeing the operating room and the anesthesiologist starting to place an oxygen mask on me. The last thing I remember is seeing it about 6 inches from my face.

I woke up in the recovery room to two more IVs in my hand. One was a central line, and as soon as I was conscious, the nurse started to remove it. The thing about those is they have to apply pressure for 15 minutes straight so she was very close to me and I felt very safe. I felt nothing in my back which was good. The epidurals were working.  I also had no more pain in my hips and I wondered if that was just from the epidural as well.

I got back to my room after 8pm.  Jeff was waiting patiently. He stayed with me until late into the night then went home to bed.  I don't remember the rest of the night.  Sleep is good and it comes easily.

Post Surgery - Remembering Thursday

I have been home from the hospital for two days now.  I will try and re-cap what I remember from my 5-day stay.
Thursday: The hospital called. A surgery has been cancelled and mine can be moved up.  I am glad because waiting until the afternoon is absolute torture.  Jeff is on his way home and we left the house at 11.

When I get to the hospital, the receptionist greets me with a gift that she made.  It is a cute little doll made from a towel and I find it very comforting.  My surgeon walks by as we wait to head upstairs to the surgical unit. He says hi and is calm. I wish I was calm but I am screaming on the inside. As soon as all the paperwork is done we head upstairs and when I get to the unit I am whisked away quickly.

I am barely in the surgical gown, which has to weigh 10 pounds (it feels like there is lead in it), when I am poked by a nurse who is trying unsuccessfully to insert an IV. At the same time, there is another person putting compression hose on my legs and another is trying to attach an oxygen sensor to my finger and yet another is inventorying my things. I feel like I am in an episode of ER, they are all working so quickly. My surgeon's staff stops by to say hi. That was nice..more really calm people.

My husband is finally allowed in to say good luck and I am moved to the surgical suite.  I made sure to look around. I remember doing that but I do not remember what I saw. There was no counting back from 100, just a hello from the anesthesiologist and I was out. When I woke up a few hours later, I remember coming out of a groggy sleep and announcing very loudly to the nurse, I CAN FEEL MY TOES! It has been so long since that occurred.  She smiled, even chuckled a little and looked over at someone that I could not see. I think they were all happy that I was happy.

As I get back to my room, Jeff is there waiting and looking relieved.  I tell him I am in no pain and feeling pretty good, all things considered.  Even though my surgery was only two hours, by the time I got back to my room is was close to 5.  He looked tired.  I convinced him to head over to the Legion Riders social that was being held only a few blocks away at 6.  After all, he needed dinner and a beer would probably help relieve some of the stress of the day.  And after he left, I felt a sense of relief knowing that he wasn't just sitting here in the hospital watching me sleeping between the doctors and nurses poking around.  It was a very restful and pain-free night.

Pre Surgery Jitters

When thinking about my spine issues in general I realized that I've never really taken them as seriously as I probably should have. Part of that comes from the change in the diagnosis; the original diagnosis seemed a little easier to live with. When I went from a few irritating bulging discs that can be dealt with through physical therapy, epidural injections and surgery as a last result to a diagnosis of Degenerative Disc Disease where the only way to treat is surgery, I started to take things a little more seriously.  As my vertebrae wear away, I know the risk of damage to the good ones if I don't get this fixed, but getting it fixed is terribly scary.

Logic tells me doing it now makes the most sense. I am not working so there's no employer to inconvenience. It is winter so I won't be missing out on good weather and outdoor activities and I will be ready for a healthy summer.

My pre-op instructions came in the mail today and here is the first sentence of the 6-page document.  Yes, it is 6 pages long!

On January 23, 2014  you are scheduled for an Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1; on January 24, 2014, you are scheduled for a Decompressive Lumbar Laminectomy L2-3, L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1 with a Posterior Spinal Fusion with Instrumentation L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1.

Sounds complicated but I have faith in my surgeons and it helps not to think about it if at all possible. As I read through all the pages, I realize that I need to get some things.  I need antibacterial soap and some post-surgical loose clothing.  So I head to Wal-Mart to buy some cheap Danskin yoga wear a size bigger than I normally wear.  That should help. At least it keeps me busy so I don't have to think about it too much.  

More Doctor Visits

In the past week-and-a-half I have been to two physicians, a general surgeon who will help perform my spine surgery and my primary care physician who had to do a pre-op physical in order to clear me for surgery. I am used to my primary care doc so that visit is no big deal but I never met this surgeon before so I am hoping he is somewhat likeable.

The general surgeon is Dr. Mahoney and within the first 5 minutes of my visit, I am very comfortable with him.  I immediately noticed his hands. He has hands that look like a surgeon's or an pianist's. He has long fingers that look strong enough to endure hours of tedious, close work.  It comforts me and I know that sounds crazy.

It's been my experience that doctors are usually lacking in personality from all those years of studying instead of socializing, which is a good thing for us patients but this man definitely has some personality. He notices my boots and asks me if they are Steve Maddens. I say yes. He mentions that his daughter has some just like them and I state that I would prefer Jimmie Choos.  His response was that he can have me back in them by summer.  I like that kind of confidence.

After examination, he talks about the incision he will make in my abdomen, from the belly button all the way down to my hysterectomy scar.  Since I have a tattoo of flowers around my belly button, he says I shouldn't worry about how it will look, he will make it look like another stem from the flowers. Ha ha! I really like how comfortable I am around this guy. He is definitely likeable.

Doctors Should Share

I have been very fortunate to have a primary care physician who listens to me, understands me and treats me me with respect. She knows my philosophy regarding my healthcare and applies it as best she can while still keeping me healthy and safe. We live by the philosophy, don't medicate forever what can be fixed today.

The hard part about my care is that I tend to choose specialists that I like and they are not always in the same network plan as my pcp (primary care physician). My pcp is part of the St. Mary's Medical Group and my orthopedic specialists are in the Wheaton Healthcare System. Now you would think that under the Affordable Care Act where there are rules regarding access to electronic medical records, things would get a little easier. I don't know if it's because we are dealing with the government or if it's just an easy excuse to blame others, however, The St. Mary's Group doesn't like to talk to the Wheaton Group and vice-versa. There always seems to be a lot of eye-rolling going on when I mention one doctor to the other. So to torture us patients they just keep making us fill out the same authorizations to send medical information back and forth over and over again. With electronic medical records in place I don't get why they just can't look in my electronic file and see that I authorized my doctors to share information.  But it's never that easy.

All I know is that I like my physicians, they are very personable, competent, and I trust them. They are worth the little extra effort no matter how stupid their policies are. But I still don't understand if electronic medical records are the new law under the Affordable Health Care Act and take effect for 2014 - then why can't they just share my medical results? I am currently walking around with my MRI images on two discs so I can take them from one doctor to another.  At least they are on disc and not giant images on film. So I guess I should be happy for that.

More Spine Issues

We are back in the doctor's office to discuss surgery. Before I get into that, we discuss the cervical MRI. Again, I can easily see right smack in the middle of the image is a missing disc with surrounding vertebrae that do not line up nicely, they are pushed in towards my nerves. The doctor asks if I want to get some PT for it right away and I say no, one thing at at time. I would rather put this in the back of my mind and just concentrate on the surgery at hand.

So the doctor starts the discussion. It is a lengthy conversation about how the procedure will go.  It is a two-day surgery. On the first day they do an incision in the abdomen to expose the front of the spine and put in the spacers that will become my new discs. It is a 2 and a half hour procedure, barring no complications. On the second day, they enter the spine from the back and remove the damaged bone, replace with cadaver bone and attach the bone to the discs put in place the day before.  After the doctor was satisfied that we understood the entire thing, he left us with his PA who got out a model of the spine and actually demonstrated what the replacement would look like.  I liked the visual demonstration, and at the same time the whole thing made me somewhat queasy.

My husband drove me home and we were both pretty immersed in worry and relief at the same time, knowing that once the surgery was all over I could have a better quality of life, considering I have been in terrible pain and distress for a very long time.